Sunday, March 09, 2008

Recurrent Corneal Erosion (Updated)

Few of you may not know but for the second half of last week, I once again injured my cornea and was once again without my eyesight for a few days.

Fortunately for me I had already drafted out my previous entry on Mudah and all I had to do was ask someone to publish it for me so many of you probably didn't know I was gone.Well.... so it happened .. AGAIN.

This is the 3rd time I scratched my cornea in 8 months and each time I do it, I go through a lot of pain and lose my eyesight for a few days which is really great for catching up on loss sleep but really frustrating if you have plenty of work to do.

Clearly.. the helmet I wear to sleep really ain't helping.So I went back to my eye specialist.

The minute I took my first step into his room he said"AHH..... Mr Tiah... nice to see you again."

I replied"Yes Doc... this is becoming a habit. Do you happen to have one of those Coffee Bean kind of loyalty cards where I come for 12 treatments and get the 13th one for FREE?"The Doc laughed it away and got down to looking at my injury.

After 5 minutes of examining my eye, he said"I think you suffer from this thing called a Recurring Corneal Erosion".

Naturally my reply was"Doc... English... please!"

and he went on to explain that my injury was really nothing to do with me scratching my eyes but more like a disorder where the outer layer of my cornea fails to attach properly to the underlying layer hence causing some kind of friction.

Anyway as always I'm always a guy about solutions. Not about what happened before but what we can do to stop it from happening again so I asked the Doc"Doc... so how ah? How to make sure I dun kena like this again?"

And you know what the Doc said?

He replied"Oh you can't.. it's going to happen like that pretty often for the rest of your life."

I let out a courtesy laugh after that... you know.. the Doctor just told a joke and when the doctor tells a joke.. YOU LAUGH. Simple as that right?

You know there was once a case where someone went for a Kidney transplant and the Doctor operating on him mistakenly removed the wrong kidney?

He removed the kidney that was working instead of the kidney that wasn't.Do you know why? It's not because the Doctor is an idiot. Doctors are all smart.

It's because the patient didn't laugh at the Doctor's jokes when he was telling it.

So when in surgery the Doctor decided to take matters in his own hands and when the shit hits the fan, all he has to say is"Whooops... wrong kidney... sorry ah! They both look the same to me."

If this happens say even 3-4 times a year, that means I'll be out of action for say 16 days each year with certainty. Hell if I were working somewhere, I wouldn't even have enough sick leave for me to take because of this!

And think of what my clients like Desmond here would think if I were MIA for so many days in a year.Probably something along the lines of"Mahaii... this Timothy always pretend that his cornea kena scratch to escape work. I bet now he's not at the hospital but instead at some Strip Club enjoying himself."

So I sat up from my seat and asked the Doc again"WHAT?! So there is NOTHING I can do about this?!"

The Doc said"Nope. Well we could do a surgery where we use a needle to poke your cornea or even scrape off your entire cornea and wait for it to grow a new one back... but even then it still might not solve the problem".I edged closer to the Doctor, looked him in eye and said"So you're saying... I can go through a surgery where I have you or someone poke my eye with a needle many many times to remove the entire outer layer, which sounds painful as hell to me... but even then it may not solve the problem?"

Tomorrow morning I am flying to Singapore... to see another Doctor there... for a second opinion.----------------------------------------------------Updated

Hey after seeing the first few comments of this entry I think it's drawing a bit of a somber mood. I am touched that you guys are concerned about me but at the same time this is not too big a deal okay everyone so don't worry about me.

There are no long term effects of this, what this means is just that every now and then my eye will hurt and I won't be able to open both my eyes for a few days while undergoing treatment. After that... like now it'll just heal back again.Like now.. see? I just took this picture a few minutes ago.

All healthy and all.. so don't so somber okay.. cheer up a little bit...

Just checked the Wiki-Wiki that u surfed. It can't be totally cured but you can reduce the frequency it happens. Just a summary here from Mr Wiki, just in case if you find it 'unenglish':

1) Avoid smoke that irritates your eye (cigarrette smoke, eg)2) Drink more water, less alcohol3) Don't sleep too late (this one very hard for boss)4) Sleep on 1 side of body and not on the back5) Avoid sleeping in air-cond cos it'll dry your eyes.6) Wake up with eyes closed, so that either you put ointment or rub your closed eyelids in circular motion to "unstick the eyelids (so that enough tears are produce to lubricate the eyes) before trying to open them.

So as long as your eyes are not dried, you'll be able to prevent the weakly attaching outer cornea from being teared off by easily.

Stewie, now guilty of making fun of you.. i was just havin some fun wif ya boss.. ive done some research on your prob and i think you could buy some artificial tears before you get professional help in SG

boss you know i really dunno whether to laugh anymore at this, i mena as much as you tell it in joking manner. Quite the painful to hear you have to put up with that for the rest of your life. Hope you won't have as many bad eye days for the rest of the year... or life for that matter.

since you are alright now, guess you dont need a get well soon.... :p but really, i still dont get how someone can actually accidentally scratch their own eyes while sleeping... will an eye patch help?

I have suffered from this condition for a couple of years. I did not like the options so I learned on my own..between the ointment (Muro 128)? and trying to remember to rub my eye lids gently before opening my eyes, I have less episodes..and if it does happen..if I immediately keep my eyes closed for about 10-15 minutes..it's better..hope this helps

I don't do this too often...and hopefully you don't think this weird...but I have the same problem - a recurrent corneal abrasion and was 'google-ing' to find out more info about it. Hence I landed on your page...

I would re-tear my cornea about 2 times a month and finally opted for the PTK laser surgery after a year of the agony (I also did stromal puncture surgery)! Since I have had done this...I haven't had any issues.

Re-tearing your cornea is very painful so I figured I would pass this on to you because there is something your doc can do about it.